Why I Don't Care About Controversial Religious Issues

Love.

It was radical when Jesus said it, but somehow, over 2000 years later, we still haven’t managed to get the point.

This week, Tim Thomas publicly announced that he believes in “traditional Biblical values” with respect to marriage. It follows, of course, that he does not believe in gay marriage.

I bet you think you know what I’m going to say in the post. At the very least, you think you’re going to read an article about my arguments about why I do or do not believe in gay marriage. The same would be true if I opened with a line about abortion, or pre-marital sex, or any of those divisive current issues in society. That is NOT what I’m writing about.

You know why? I don’t care. I’m not pushing any agenda to convince you to think like I do on any of those issues. Partly because, despite my Christian faith, I don’t really feel like I have a conclusive answer to any of those big questions. But MOSTLY because making laws to prevent people from getting married or ending their pregnancies or having sex before marriage is not going to show them love or compassion.

Jesus told us that the greatest commandment is to love the Lord our God, but that the second was to love our neighbours as ourselves (Matthew 22). He didn’t just talk the talk, either. He ate meals with tax collectors, He showed compassion to a woman who had already had FIVE husbands! He saved an adulterous woman from being stoned to death! Jesus genuinely loved every single person He came into contact with.

In my life, I have had struggles. It’s normal! The entire Bible tells us stories about people who weren’t good enough to live up to God’s standard. When I was stuck with thoughts about how much I hated my body, and battled with a 6-year struggle against an eating disorder, what if someone told me that what I was doing was immoral, and that they wanted to make it illegal? Would that have made me want to stop? Or would it have increased my shame and constant struggle with feeling inadequate?

If all of this is true… If Jesus wants us to love people, and I am not even close to being perfect, then what right do I have to tell people how to live? Perhaps it would be better to encourage young girls that they don’t have to have sex with their high-school boyfriends to be accepted, or to recognize that same-sex attraction is a confusing and difficult emotion for a lot of people. Maybe once we start actually loving the people around us, they won’t get so angry and alienated by us.

Ghandi said, “I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. They are so unlike your Christ.” He wasn’t wrong when he said this, guys. If Jesus were here right now, I would be ashamed of how dissimilar I am from Him. 

So, what do I think about gay marriage? Of abortion? I think they are tough issues, and instead of choosing a “pro” or “anti” side, I’m just going to say this: I love gay people. I love the women who get abortions. Because that’s what Jesus would have done. And if I’m fighting for the law and losing track of Jesus, then what am I fighting for? The law will pass, along with all other temporary things in the world. 

God is forever. Love is forever. I choose that side.

Scientists are the most arrogant people in the world. And yes, I make that claim arrogantly.

For the past 3 years, I have been pursuing a degree in Health Sciences, hoping to be enlightened in some way about how the human body works. And don’t get me wrong, I have! I can tell you plenty about electrical conduction in the heart, the chemistry of muscle contractions, and the mechanisms of antibacterial resistance. But at the end of all that, do I really know anything with absolute certainty?

In my Genetics class, we did a case study on a woman named Santhi Soundarajan. You may have heard of her- she was stripped of her silver medal at the 2006 Asian Games after genetic testing determined that she was actually a male. How can this be? Santhi has a uterus, ovaries, and a female body shape... And yet, according to her karyotype, she’s a male. I won’t try to explain all of the science behind how this is true, but basically she had the chromosome we associate with “maleness”, without the gene that causes male characteristics.

So here I am in genetics, basically presented with knowledge that challenged everything I thought I knew about sex determination. That got me to thinking... Are there people out there whose hearts beat stronger on the right? Mammals that can breathe without oxygen? Zygotes that can be formed with only one parent?

While our current understanding of science would say no, how do we know that exceptions to our laws don’t exist? Who made the laws of science, anyways? How is it that our world is so intricately woven together to function, and why do we care so much about understanding how it works?

To me, the only comfort I can find in this massive universe is that there is a perfect God who created it. Now, notice that I did NOT deny science in that sentence. I simply, but boldly, affirm that I believe in an all-powerful, omnipotent God who created and sustains the universe. Without Him, I don’t believe that anything would exist, or that we’d have a reason to seek it out. 

Why do we study science? Is it really to have a greater or more complete understanding of our world? Studying science has not given me such an understanding. If anything, I have found the opposite. Before I knew about pregnancy and fetal development, I was content in my understanding of it. Now that I have explored some of the research about it, the only thing I understand completely is that we hardly understand anything. 

As it says in Romans 1:20, "For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse." As Paul observed long ago, we can see God through what He has made. The thing is, though, as I've seen in my pursuit of knowledge of God and of science, we can never know it all. David writes in Psalm 40:5 "Many, LORD my God, are the wonders you have done, the things you planned for us. None can compare with you; were I to speak and tell of your deeds, they would be too many to declare." No matter how much we strive to understand our world or our God, we can never fully comprehend Him.

Biochemistry, physics, genetics, physiology... You can get a PhD in any of these fields. However, after dedicating years of your life to any of them, you have AT BEST a very thorough understanding of ONE of its parts. For example, the human genome contains 20 000+ genes, and a geneticist can spend his whole life studying one of them. 0.0005% of the possible genetically active sequences. And that’s only in humans! We still have yet to identify and explore the genes of BILLIONS of species. Your life’s work as a scientist might only cover 5.0 x 10^-12% of the possible knowledge that exists in ONE domain.

Again, I’m not denying that science has its uses. Much of what we do in a day depends on science. And I think it has the ability to greatly improve the way we live. However, I also know that putting your faith and trust in science can be overwhelming and disappointing. Instead, I choose to live and serve the God who designed what we strive to understand. Science, without God, is a lost battle. So I choose to put my science-student arrogance aside, and simply seek to understand God through His creation.